Peter Mayer obituary

Charismatic publisher who combined erudition with commercial savvy to turn Penguin Books into a global brand

In 1978 Peter Mayer, who has died aged 82, was drafted in from the US to rescue a moribund Penguin Books. He took the beloved but by then loss-making publisher and turned it into a global publishing brand, along the way transforming the publishing industry as a whole. Without doubt the greatest publisher of his generation, Mayer was also the most charismatic. Handsome, charming, witty and at times infuriating, he was also brave, defending to the hilt Salman Rushdie and his novel The Satanic Verses (published in 1988 by Viking Penguin) and refusing to go into hiding when a fatwa was issued against Rushdie, as he was advised to do.

Mayer was a true intellectual but what made him unique was the combination of erudition with an overarching vision and commercial savvy. Among his ...

Post navigation

SeriouslyBooks is curated by Keith Teare of chat.center. The top blogs are monitored. It is intended as a convenience for those who want to monitor the ever-changing publishing ecosystem - both in terms of the books, people, publishers and the ideas underlying their activities.
For more information see http://s.erious.ly or chat with me live through chat.center at chat.center/kteare.